|
And to answer your other question: two years is the typical period they're interested in.
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2010 19:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:35 |
|
|
I am at my wit's end. Still going back and forth with the underwriter. If I saw this picky oval office in person, I don't believe I would be able to control my actions. Everything that I have ever disputed on my credit record( even as far back as 2004 ) I have had to call them and have notes put on my accounts that say "I do not dispute this" because some archaic credit pull shows a note on them saying I disputed it years ago. I have 2 days left on my contract, a seller who's getting pretty impatient and seems unwilling to extend it, and a rental that I have to be out of in 2 days. I'm going to be homeless if this falls through. No end in sight.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2010 21:16
|
|
|
I think underwriters are now being more picky and slow in general. I'm still not closed on my place, and we're into the 3rd contract extension period. We've finally gotten the bank to generate the loan paperwork, so we should actually close his time... 38 days after the original closing date.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2010 21:30
|
|
|
I will counter your experiences with my own: my mortgage broker only pulled 2 out of 3 credit reports, wanted 3 months of bank statements, and only a month's worth of paycheck stubs. This was in April of this year. My credit score was not the greatest (mid-ish 600s) either so I was expecting to jump through a lot of hoops based on what I had read here.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2010 22:12
|
|
|
Around here (Howard County, MD), single family homes are dropping down into the 300-350k range. The median income for a family in this county is 100-110k. Does this mean they're officially no longer overpriced? We probably make around that median income as a household and are looking to buy in the next 18 months or so. Assuming a 20% down payment is no problem, are there any red flags here? The schools are superb, the Federal (NSA in particular) gravy train is still running strong. This area should in theory be prosperous for a long time. Zillow has consistent monthly/quarterly/yearly rises in home value since early 2009. But I'm nervous.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2010 15:38
|
|
|
Great. The seller's Realtor is playing hardball now. Wants us to go get another pre-approval from a local lender before granting an extension on our contract. I managed to bribe my landlord into letting us stay another week or so. Just finished obsessively going through my credit files looking for the word "dispute" to get it taken off so these picky motherfuckers will approve us. They actually kicked our loan back again because one credit bureau had an account listed as " Dispute Settled ". The mother fucker wanted that note removed. Because of that we just blew through another proposed closing date. Our broker didn't tell us about this poo poo beforehand so it's all a last second surprise. I can't take this poo poo anymore. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2010 21:00
|
|
|
We're gonna close tomorrow.  A mere 79 days post-contract and 34 days after the original closing date. Better late than never.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2010 05:40
|
|
|
Geez, that's awful. You'd think given the national stagnating sales numbers, lenders would be a little bit more willing to, you know, lend. It's in their own interests. FB, I hope you can pull through. In the end, a few day's motel expense and maybe a big storage container for a month might be worth the cost.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2010 07:57
|
|
|
A cool situation cropped up, a relative's friend's wife's mother had to go to a nursing home, they want to sell the house asap. It's appraised at 66, I can get it for 50. (housing is really cheap in rochester, ny) It's in a decent area, has a garage, unfinished attic and basement, built in 1949. Went to go look at it. It's well maintained, clean, looks like mostly drywall, where there is plaster, it's not cracked at all. New carpet, good looking hardwoods under the carpet. No water in the basement, etc. Will need a roof in a few years, and has fuses. It's only 800 sq ft. I made an offer, they accepted, going through the mortgage approval process now. As it stands, the mortgage is actually going to be cheaper than what I'm paying for rent.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2010 13:32
|
|
|
SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:A cool situation cropped up, a relative's friend's wife's mother had to go to a nursing home, they want to sell the house asap. It's appraised at 66, I can get it for 50. (housing is really cheap in rochester, ny) sanchez posted:Around here (Howard County, MD), single family homes are dropping down into the 300-350k range. The median income for a family in this county is 100-110k. Does this mean they're officially no longer overpriced? http://blog.redfin.com/washingtondc/files/2010/04/Case-Shiller-Redfin-Markets_2010-02.png
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2010 15:51
|
|
|
gvibes posted:How much are real estate taxes? 2800/yr w/o any rebates (our state has like a STAR program or something)
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2010 22:34
|
|
|
gvibes posted:How much are real estate taxes?
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2010 23:16
|
|
|
Wanted to post my situation and get some advice: -Married, no kids. -About $125k gross income -Roughly $250/month in student loans -No credit card payments -No car payment -Qualify for a VA Home Loan -FICO scores are at the upper end -About $35K in Retirement savings (could be tapped for down payment if needed, but would prefer not to if we can use the VA Loan) Currently, we're renting a place in Arlington, VA. Most of our friends/family are buying houses and we're starting to get antsy. We have a really stable financial situation, but making an investment that loses value in year 1 has me nervous. Also, not sure how the market is in the area. I read that the DC metro area is overpriced at the moment (thanks Case-Shiller index), but I don't know if this area will continue to be overpriced or not due to the large number of government jobs. Single family houses in VA that are inside the beltway that we're considering are currently in the $400K-$450K range. Any recommendations? Wait a while and keep renting?
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2010 14:27
|
|
|
You should not buy because your peers are buying; it's a powerful psychological influence, but it has no place in your personal or family financial decision-making. It seems like you are in good financial shape. I think with your income you'd probably be more comfortable with payments on something around $350 or so, but it depends on what else you want to do with your income, and also what other expenses you'll incur, etc. You definitely need cash for your down payment and expenses, especially if you're really going to buy a $400k house. Even qualifying for a VA home loan, you should have a healthy reserve of cash; no matter how good your loan terms, it costs money up-front to get through inspections, loan fees, moving, and immediate maintenance/upgrade before you move in. As you have pointed out, houses are poor investments historically. I don't have a link, but I've read that in the last century, houses have appreciated by something like 3% annually, on average. While there are tax advantages, it's still not enough to make a house as good an investment as (say) a well-balanced portfolio of mutual funds and bonds. But that's OK, because you don't buy a house just as an investment: it's a place to live. The most important consideration, then, after "can we afford it", is whether a house purchase is one of your life-goals, whether it will produce a meaningful increase in your quality of life, and whether it will enhance or obstruct your plans for the future. For example: are you and your spouse sure you want to live in the same area for the next (minimum) 7+ years, and maybe much longer? Do you enjoy working on home projects, or is it better to pay for someone else to maintain a building, yard, etc? Do you need more room, especially a garage or yard? Do you plan to have kids, and if so, are you happy with the school districts in your area? Is there a chance you might get an employment offer in the next few years that would prompt one or both of you to want to move? Do you want to have a fully paid-off house when you retire, to lower your fixed expenses when you're living on a fixed income? Are you OK with the possibility that you might be unable to sell, for a decade, due to falling prices? Would it be a disaster if you were underwater on your house for the foreseeable future, or would that be OK, because you'll always be able to afford the payments and have no desire to sell/move anyway? Go over your finances, see if you can't save some money, consider your life goals, and make a decision based on that. Try not to get too caught up in what the real estate market is doing; that's good to pay attention to after you've decided whether you really want to buy or not, but it seems to me you need to consider those basics first. One last thing: you didn't mention your age, but I hope you're still in your 20s. Otherwise, your retirement savings are pretty small compared to your income... it might be worth turning up the rate of retirement investment for a while.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2010 19:25
|
|
|
I'm going to have to be very vague but I'm hoping for some general advice :- I'm 28, single and about to start a job where I'll be able to save USD50k annually (up to 70-80K depending on bonuses). Given the industry I work in, I'm hoping I'll be able to at least double that savings amount within 5 years. I'll be working overseas for the next 5-10 years at least but I want to move back home in the long-term. My main concern is that real estate back home is very expensive (10-15% price increases annually over the past 10 years even up to today). It's a hub for international finance and given its geographical restrictions, I'm guessing that prices will continue to increase over time. To give numbers, some of the nice 2BR apartments that I'd want to live in go for USD750K today. I'm guessing that by the time I get back in 5-10 years, those same places will be going for USD1.5 million. Is there any hope for me to be able to afford a place like that? And what can I do to financially prepare myself? It just seems like there're so many variables right now that it's impossible to plan - having a family, moving around etc. Should I just look to migrating to some place cheaper?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 00:32
|
|
|
shrike82 posted:Should I just look to migrating to some place cheaper? If you are right and they go to $1.5M and you have half that in savings you would deplete your entire savings and take on a $750,000 mortgage. $750K @ 5% is $48,000/yr in principal and interest, another ~$15K in property taxes not to mention insuring and paying dues on it. Even if your salary doubled to $150K I wouldn't get anywhere close to owning a $1.5M property. At that point it sort of becomes like a Ferrari, if you can't afford to pay for two then you probably can't afford to own one. If you are wrong and prices stabilize then by all means paying for a place to live in New York City in cash is awesome if that is your thing. If you gave me $50-100K/yr into my savings for 10 years I wouldn't spend it on a 2 bedroom apartment in New York I would probably retire someplace second world and sunny where I could consult remotely. Move to Malaysia and go to Singapore for finance work maybe?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 02:54
|
|
|
Arzakon posted:If you are right and they go to $1.5M and you have half that in savings you would deplete your entire savings and take on a $750,000 mortgage. $750K @ 5% is $48,000/yr in principal and interest, another ~$15K in property taxes not to mention insuring and paying dues on it. Even if your salary doubled to $150K I wouldn't get anywhere close to owning a $1.5M property. At that point it sort of becomes like a Ferrari, if you can't afford to pay for two then you probably can't afford to own one. Who said he's in New York? Our real estate markets didn't fair as well as he described. Hong Kong? Singapore?
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 04:44
|
|
|
We're down to the 11th hour now with this. Approval or homelessness. I am really beginning to despise all the people who defaulted on their loans in the last year since their actions are the cause of all of this pain for me. Here's why. You may want to add the following to the OP as a warning: During the artificial housing boom/bubble/clusterfuck/whatever, an apparently large number of prospective home buyers used some sort of credit "service" to inflate their scores. What they did to up people's scores was basically dispute everything negative on their file. This would trick the automated underwriting at fannie/freddie into ignoring all the disputed(derogatory) info and sign off on the loan. When Fannie/Freddie went bust, this practice was identified as responsible for a large number of defaulted loans. Therefore any files with disputed items will not pass automated underwriting and go to manual. Well the problem is, they took it a step further. Often when a tradeline is disputed, it either goes away, or the dispute finishes and there is a note on that tradeline similar to " Dispute Resolved ". Even though there is nothing actually being disputed, that leftover note will tank your loan. Yes, you heard it right. Exercising your rights to dispute through the FDCPA will leave a note on your tradelines and render you unable to buy a house, even if it's just a note and not an actual dispute. For my situation, I have been through complete and absolute hell trying to get these notes removed. Experian and Equifax have been the easiest to deal with on this. However, Transunion are IMPOSSIBLE to deal with, which leads to my last remaining account note. The account in question has the damned "dipute resolved" note on it which the underwriter keeps kicking back. I call Transunion repeatedly only to be told that they can't do anything about it, but they'd be happy to open a new dispute for me   I call the creditor and they "do not report to credit agencies anymore". No one will take ownership of it which leaves me pretty much hosed. The really funny thing about this situation is there are no problems with my credit score, the house appraised for more than we are paying, down payment money is documented well, DTI ratios are off the charts good, title stuff is done, WDO and all is good, inspections are all good, but we can't get approved because of a note on one tradeline on my credit file. If there was ever a reason to get out the  and declare that lenders are doing everything they can not to loan out TARP money, I don't know what is.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 14:00
|
|
|
Farking Bastage posted:If there was ever a reason to get out the Silly man, TARP funds aren't for lending; they're for recapitalizing reckless banks.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 19:37
|
|
|
SlapActionJackson posted:Silly man, TARP funds aren't for lending; they're for recapitalizing reckless banks.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 19:43
|
|
|
WELP. I just fired my broker. My landlord of 4 years is being nice enough to let me go month to month. The seller "may" extend my contract, but I'm not sure. This is all such a clusterfuck.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 20:52
|
|
|
senor punk posted:Who said he's in New York? Our real estate markets didn't fair as well as he described. It's depressing when I think I'll be spending 20-30 grand a year on rent just for myself. shrike82 fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 16, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 21:03
|
|
|
Heh. Already got another pre-aproval and an incredulous WTF reaction from a local lender when I told her how it kept getting kicked back. Her words were " Wow. I don't see how they could have possibly held this up". I'm not allowing myself to crack a smile till her UW looks it all over. At least this particular UW is down the hall from her and not on the opposite side of the country. I will never EVER deal with an out of town lender again.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2010 21:57
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I think with your income you'd probably be more comfortable with payments on something around $350 or so, but it depends on what else you want to do with your income, and also what other expenses you'll incur, etc. What I posted as "retirement savings" didn't count bank savings, so we do have a bit squirreled away for these. We do have a lease until next June at our current place, so we have ~9 months to save up some extra cash and get going. I did read that 91% of people who take the VA loan don't have a down payment for exactly these reasons - lots of extra costs. Thanks a bunch for all the advice. I've only been looking purely at economics up to now, but I think there's a large bit of personal satisfaction I'd get from owning a house and seeing the fruits of my labor.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2010 00:31
|
|
|
Sure thing. From a purely economic standpoint, we should all be living in cardboard boxes eating ramen while investing in a well-diversified portfolio of no-load low-fee mutual funds, stocks, bonds, treasuries, and stable commodities, taking into account domestic/international balance, regularly rebalanced and maximally utilizing tax-advantaged savings accounts. But really, money is for living on, and you have to balance frugality and wise investing with quality of life. Buy a house for the same reasons you'd buy a Lamborghini. It may be an impractical and high-maintenance way to watch your hard-earned cash depreciate alarmingly... but that doesn't mean it's the wrong decision! If you can afford to buy and maintain one, you can get a lot of satisfaction and fun out of ownership.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2010 01:13
|
|
|
senor punk posted:Who said he's in New York? Our real estate markets didn't fair as well as he described. shrike82 posted:Singapore. My post history stalking skills are poor. For 1.5 million I suggest he buys property in Geylang and start his own whorehouse.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2010 02:50
|
|
|
I'm glad I found this thread, as I am going crazy right now. Here's the story: My husband and I live in Portland, OR, we want to buy a house, we found a fabulous one in our price range, our counter offer was accepted, our loan and finances are rock-solid, the house passed inspection with flying colors, we're less than 3 weeks from closing, and the appraisal just came back under the contract price. WAY under, like $30,000 under. How is this possible???? Obviously we won't get approved now! The sellers are ordering another appraisal, and I have no idea what to expect. I really can't imagine them budging and lowering the price, as they played hardball with accepting our offer. Their house was on the market for a year, they were asking way too much, we've been the only offer. Other houses in the neighborhood have sold for a significant amount of money in the last 6 months (over $600K), why would this one appraise so much less?! I'm so pissed. Goddammit, we were picking out paint colors last weekend! Now I feel like we're going to have to walk away. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2010 02:55
|
|
|
Our appraisal came under too, around $10k under. It was extremely frustrating and the whole process kind of blew my mind. Like the owners had spent 15k remodeling the downstairs bathroom a few months before to make it look really nice. But since this house was a split level, and the bathroom was downstairs, it didn't effect the appraisal. Two of the nearby comparable were complete jokes, these ugly, outdated houses, and yet those selling prices are what guided the price of our house. In the end, it worked out in our favor and the sellers dropped down about 6k and we made up the rest. I think at this point it's up to your broker convincing the sellers broker (and then owners) that they're going to have to do some budging if try ever want to sell this house, and for you guys to figure out how much you want to spend out of pocket to meet that. At least in our situation, that extra 2k had to be out of pocket and not incorporated into then loan in order for us to avoid pmi and have 20% equity.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2010 12:05
|
|
|
Strict 9 posted:Our appraisal came under too, around $10k under. It was extremely frustrating and the whole process kind of blew my mind. Like the owners had spent 15k remodeling the downstairs bathroom a few months before to make it look really nice. But since this house was a split level, and the bathroom was downstairs, it didn't effect the appraisal. Two of the nearby comparable were complete jokes, these ugly, outdated houses, and yet those selling prices are what guided the price of our house. We're already putting down 30%, so we really don't have much leeway in terms of coming up with more cash. We've discussed it, and at most, we could come up with another $5K. We're not at the point where we're asking the sellers to drop the price, but I have a feeling it's going to come to that. On the plus side, we went to a bunch of open houses today to console ourselves with the fact that there are other properties out there. We ended up finding one that we kind of like for $100K cheaper, so we're not totally depressed anymore.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2010 01:39
|
|
|
Sounds like you're doing the right thing. Honestly there are tons of houses; you're out the cost of your inspections but you should be able to get your earnest money back, so if you wind up having to just walk, you're only out like whatever $400 or $500 you spent to inspect. If a house appraises way under the selling price, it might be because of bad selection of comps. But. It's also a huge warning sign. It means there are cheaper houses that have recently sold in the same area... even if there are less-tangible reasons why those were worth less, it is a big indicator that you could maybe save a bunch of money. The fact you are the only offerers after a year is another big warning sign. If you can save 100k and spend 20K fixing up a different house and have the same level of quality at the end, it's worth doing that. As you're aware, and you seem happy, so awesome! (Also, I hope you're not just relying on open houses... right? Your agent should be finding you houses within a day or two of them hitting the market so you can be the first offer on stuff that's actually priced really low to attract offers.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2010 06:22
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Sounds like you're doing the right thing. Honestly there are tons of houses; you're out the cost of your inspections but you should be able to get your earnest money back, so if you wind up having to just walk, you're only out like whatever $400 or $500 you spent to inspect. What I really don't understand about the low appraisal is that all of the comps were sold at over $600K except for one. Also, which I forgot to mention when I first posted, is that the appraiser screwed up. He did the appraisal and had a bunch of numbers wrong on the house, including the contract price. So we got back that appraisal and it was the $30K under contract. We freaked out, our broker and realtor freaked out, and asked him to redo it with the correct info. He did, and it came back the same drat price. WTF. That's mostly why we're so pissed, he hosed it up the first time, did it again claiming to have fixed it, but somehow comes back with an identical value. We're really hoping to avoid buying a house that needs work done in the immediate future.  I don't know for a fact if we're the only offers after a year, all I know is that they priced it crazy high a year ago, took it off the market for about a month, put it back on $50K lower, then lowered it another $30K to the price where we came in and made an offer. It seems like they did zero research about what homes are worth in their area, I think they just got greedy because it's a nice neighborhood, and there are similar houses selling there for over $600K. Who knows, though. Yes, we are working with an agent; we just went to some open houses on our own to try and snap ourselves out of this funk.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2010 19:32
|
|
|
Is there a house owning megathread where I can discuss (whine about) furniture purchases, appliance repair, repainting, the challenges of buying poo poo on Craigslist, and other various I'm-a-new-homeowner-get-me-out-of-here issues? eta: I'll offer one really easy tip: if you're buying a fridge with the house, check under the fridge and make sure there isn't a gigantic dust ball covering the coil that in turn breaks the fridge. That was a $150 mistake! I got the fridge cheap, but still... Arkane fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Sep 16, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 18:46
|
|
|
Arkane posted:check under the fridge and make sure there isn't a gigantic dust ball covering the coil that in turn breaks the fridge. That was a $150 mistake! I got the fridge cheap, but still... It's recommended maintenance to vacuum out the coils. I try to remember it as part of "spring cleanup." I'm headed down to "re buy" my house. The agent I went through with Wells Fargo two years ago called me up and said I was eligible for their "three-step no-closing costs refi." All I had to do was verify that nothing about the property had changed, and I had never put it back on the market, so as soon as I go in and get a packet notarized, my rate will drop from 6.25% to 4.875%, and I took the opportunity to switch to a 20 year from 30. The change in the rate combined with the shorter term, my monthly payment is exactly the same. I'm assuming Wells Fargo is getting a better deal on underwriting, or something, so win-win.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 19:04
|
|
|
New lender is moving along smoothly. We had to get another appraisal but they paid for it. Came in at 15K over the sales price.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 19:00
|
|
|
eddiewalker posted:I'm assuming Wells Fargo is getting a better deal on underwriting, or something, so win-win. They keep you as a customer and get you paying 4.875% instead of 4.25-4.5% they'd have to offer to a new customer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 20:45
|
|
|
Thought I'd ask here and get some smart people's opinion about my situation. I've been renting an apartment (in a four-plex) for almost nine years. A couple days ago I get a notice to quit or fix conditions. The problem was that I had left a bowl of water out for a stray cat during a heat wave here. I didn't bring it back inside and the landlord got all pissy. I'm guessing that the cat thing isn't the real issue, it's that I'm probably paying $300+ less than the other tenants in the building. So he is going to try his best to get me out. Due to this, I'm thinking about actually buying either a house or a condo. Here's my data --Single, divorced --Approx. $50k gross income --Credit card payments totaling approx. $200 a month (Two cards, one with $800, the other about $1300) --Student loan payments of $225 (edit: only have 7k left on this debt and am paying more than the minimum of $130) I pulled my credit reports from all three agencies and it appears that I have no marks against me. I'm going to have someone who is familiar with credit reports to look over them. According to Transunion, my credit score is 703. The only issue is that I don't have much in the way of a down payment. I've got about $1500 in cash now, and I could always borrow from my 401k for the rest. I'm guessing that would be a terrible idea. Looking through the listings in my area, there are quite a few houses and condos in my price range. There is even a townhouse listed at 30k that is in a decent area, though not great. I know for that price there would be issues with it, but I have no problems sweating a bit and making the place perfect for me. I'd rather not look at a place that is on the upper end of what I could possibly be qualified for a loan. Meaning, if I qualify for 120k, rather not look for something at that price. Dumb idea to do that? diremonk fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Sep 20, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 15:52
|
|
|
diremonk posted:--Single, divorced You have outstanding revolving debt and barely any savings. I suppose if condos really are dirt cheap it might be worthwhile, but that doesn't sound like that great of an idea to me. edit: If we just let the savings and outstanding CC debt cancel each other out then at the moment you have negative savings and a student loan payment. Does it really seem like a good time to buy?
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 16:03
|
|
|
Why don't you just scrimp for a couple of months and knock out that CC debt? It's ridiculous to pay interest on so low a sum when you really could easily knock it out. And yeah, agreeing that you don't have enough saved for a down payment (unless you're like 30 years old and have $2 million in your 401k, but I'm guessing that's not the case).
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 16:21
|
|
|
Thanks for the input guys. The two credit card debts are from the last three months. I got my first credit card in about ten years and I bought a new computer on it with the idea of building up my good credit by making steady payments. The other credit debt is from last month for a dental credit line since my insurance didn't want to pay for a replacement crown and night guard. I could have paid for it up front in cash, but I didn't want to deplete my savings account. I know the savings account balance is low. Believe me, I'm not happy. It was around $3k in January, but a series of not so fun issues kept coming up and nibbling away at it. At the moment my 401k is only at $13k which is low, so that is the reason I don't want to touch it. After all my bills are paid, I usually have around $700+. At the moment my rent is fairly high for the area, sitting at almost $700. That is why I've been looking at buying a place since most places the rent is high and when I factor in pets... I'm kind of in a dilemma.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 16:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 01:35 |
|
|
It costs more than just a down payment to buy a house or condo. The exact amount more varies a lot. You also need to not be wiped out cashwise by the costs - you need extra cash after you've closed to cover your moving expenses and (often, no matter how set up you already are,) furniture and appliances. I think you could easily be in position to buy in 12 months, if you pay off those cards and save up some more cash. Also, go visit the saving for retirement thread - $13k is tiny. (Not a recrimination, I know secondhand how much a divorce can gently caress up your retirement plans and savings and etc.) I advise you to have a comprehensive plan for your career, retirement, and housing - take all three into account, and you'll be in a better position to make smart decisions about buying a home.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 17:46
|
|